Amex launches Twitter payments

NEW YORK: American Express customers are now able to shop for certain items on Twitter and pay by tweeting purchase hashtags.

This facility is an extension of Amex's Twitter Sync feature, launched nine months ago, which allows customers to get discount deals by tweeting offer hashtags.

"Based on the initial success of Amex Sync for offers, we know there is significant power in combining our assets with Twitter's platform to bring value to Cardmembers and merchants," said Leslie Berland, Senior Vice President, Digital Partnerships and Development at American Express.

The first product offered was a $25 American Express gift card for just $15. A full catalogue of products that can be purchased via Tweets will be available from today, but participating merchants include Amazon, Sony, Urban Zen and Xbox.

Payments are made by tweeting a special purchase hashtag, and retweeting the confirmation tweet from Amex within 15 minutes of receiving it. The product will then be shipped to the account billing address synced with Twitter, and payment taken from the synced Amex account.

Separately, Twitter's head of global product marketing underlined that mobile users form the core of the social media network's platform.

Guy Yalif, speaking at MediaPost's Social Insider Summit, explained that such users are 86% more likely than average users to go on the service multiple times a day, throughout the day.

Yalif noted that this creates a venue to "engage directly with consumers to connect your brand and your message into what's interesting to that consumer in that particular moment."

He also claimed that 95% of social conversation about TV is happening on Twitter, as 80% of viewers have a mobile device in front of them while they're watching TV, and two-thirds of those are mobile-first Twitter users.